


A Traveler's Guide to the Dragons of Pyrrhia

by clay_boy



Category: Wings of Fire - Tui T. Sutherland
Genre: Epistolary, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-19 10:42:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29873451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clay_boy/pseuds/clay_boy
Summary: Ever wondered what it's like out there? What kind of new and different cultures are just a trip away? A Traveler's Guide to the Dragons of Pyrrhia has it all: Each tribe's customs, festivals, religion, and even food laid out in detail by a wandering chronicler. Published by the Nightwing Library of Culture, this guide is an essential baseline for any traveler looking to leave their responsibilities behind and see the world.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	1. 3 Schanmach, 2,361 A.S.

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically my attempt at working my worldbuilding headcanons into something readable. Credit for tons of the ideas that'll make their way in here to @mapyl-syrup on tumblr, who developed a lot of these headcanons with me. Also, I'll be using this calendar: https://app.fantasy-calendar.com/calendars/6016429eab024b1dcd15cbc78029fa0e as well as some headcanons already discussed here: clay--boy.tumblr.com/tagged/wof-culture. I don't have any kind of update schedule but I'll strive for once a week at least.

I set off today from my sister’s home in the south of the Sky Kingdom. The snow has finally melted enough that I can traverse the slopes without risk of harming myself. Rogue teased me at breakfast because I was clumsy as a dragonet (and my brother Oriole laughed - Oriole who broke his nose tripping down the stairs!) I am not anymore. I am in fact a graceful adult who can quite handle myself, thank you, I just didn’t want to start my journey freezing my ass off in the remotest of mountains. 

It is a relief to be leaving. It was admittedly nice to spend the winter in that mountain home with my family, and it was a joy to meet my sister and brother-in-law Rowan’s new girlfriend Summer (she is a delight! I think I will replace my actual sister with her), but I, unlike my siblings and in-laws, was not made to stay in one place for long, and especially with this new deal I must be off to chronicle the different tribes of this land. And sea, I suppose. 

I will admit I don’t have much of a plan (and I hope my editor will leave this part out). It is true I’ve been to many places and seen many things, but I feel I need to document all the wonders the cultures of these tribes have to offer, and I do not know even what those are. I suppose I will find them as I go. I suppose that is part of the adventure.


	2. 6 Schanmach, '61

I have spent a pleasant few days among the mountain meadows, drinking in the scenery with the company of myself and my work. I have been trying to plot a course, and I have decided that I will travel down the mountains until I reach the rainforest. I should mention I am a Skywing, and I would prefer to start with my own tribe. I do not know if this is out of a desire to get it over with since it is familiar and unexciting to me, or if it is because I am afraid to leave. Perhaps both. 

I will return for the Ram Festival in the summer anyhow, so I suppose it doesn’t matter. I plan to travel to the rainforest, and stay there for the month; I have heard the rainforest is quite beautiful in the spring, and the weather is pleasant.

I reached a farmer’s hamlet at the root of a mountain today, exchanged pleasantries, and bought food. I could hunt for myself but since I am on a cultural expedition, I figure I should immerse myself in the local cuisine, even when it is the kind of bland food I have been eating since childhood. Salt mutton, seasoned with mountain herbs and the bland hardy bread typical of this southern region. The farmers I encountered were shepherds rather than goatherds, so there was no cheese to be had. I do not think of this as a great loss; Skywing cheese is, in my opinion, inferior to that of other tribes, especially the soft cheeses of the desert. It is dry, fairly tasteless, and has a most unpleasant texture, like a mouth full of dirt.

When I think back to the stories my great grandmother used to tell, it amazes me that I live in a period where I can clearly and openly say I dislike Skywing cheese, and do not live in a time where such a thought is considered unpatriotic, or even treasonous. I do hope this period of prosperity will last my lifetime.

It gets warmer the further south I go... 

With the Compass as my guide, I continue onward, towards the jungle that I hope will be receptive to my curiosity.


	3. 7 Schanmach, '61

The moons are nearly all new tonight. It is eerie to see the mountainsides in such darkness. I am sleeping among the sheep right now, and I can hardly see my writing. It is common, in the south, for most dragons to make their livings in agriculture. As I leave the higher mountain reaches and get closer to the river, there is more farming of crops, more bread, and even some amount of fruit; there are particularly tasty berries that I have spent countless afternoons gathering as a dragonet for my mother to bake into a pie. It’s strange to think that they are such an essential taste to me, and I do not even know their name. I am considering making a detour to a larger town in the hopes that it contains a bakery; I am getting tired of salt mutton.


	4. 10 Schanmach, '61

Well, I made that detour, and I am happily devouring a sweetberry pie (that is, apparently, the colloquial name). This visit is not wholly superfluous, though. A public figure in this community has sadly passed, and I have been graciously invited to attend his funeral. 

Now, it is common knowledge to me, but as I am thrilled to think of, I have readers outside my own tribe, so I will explain the precession of a Skywing funeral. It is likely known that we have two gods: the armored wingless goddess, Prosperity, Harvest, Abundance, the goddess of Life and Fire, Summer... and the god with large wings, Protector, Strength, Famine, the god of Death and Ice, Winter. When a Skywing dies, they are laid at the top of a mountain, so that their loved ones may bid goodbye to their departing spirit as it makes its way to the sky. 

I have often heard it said, among other tribes, that our worship of the Death god as one to be loved is strange; Death is a force of sadness and destruction. But this is not so; Life and Death are twins, who keep one another in balance. Their domains are opposed but equal. Summer grows the crops that feed the tribe, and Winter freezes the field to allow it to heal in time for the next year. Life, with her eternal fire, watches over the living, and her brother watches the dead. 

I will document the funeral tomorrow as much as I am allowed; this is a very sacred thing, that I am being allowed to share for the benefit of greater understanding. I ask that my readers keep this in mind.


	5. 11th Schanmach, '61

The Skywing who died was a kindly old baker, the father of the dragon whose pie I ate yesterday. He is being carried up the mountain as I write this, where his children will wish him farewell.

We have passed the statue on our way into the valley. I do not know if my readers are unfamiliar with this; there is a statue of Winter outside of each burial ground, at the entrance to the valleys where the dead are returned to him. He guards them ferociously.  


We are among the graves, now. This dragon was apparently more beloved than I first knew; our destination is almost the very top of the valley, reserved as a highest honor. I have been informed by the baker’s nephew that he lost his wings in an accident many years ago. This explains the lofty position; wingless dragons are blessed by Death, and buried in a high place in honor of what they’ve lost. It may come as a surprise, but Skywing culture is heavily revolved around flight, and losing one’s wings is the injury that is most devastating for one of us. We connect to our world and each other in the air.

We have reached the top of one of the hills framing the valley. The death statue is but a golden glimmer on the horizon; this cemetery has been in use for millennia, since before the founding of the town. The baker’s body has been laid out, and he will stay here for a week. His children are in vigil around him, prepared to allow his soul to escape into the sky so that they can bury his body under the ground. It is a rare occasion indeed to see a dragon cry, but it is common at funerals. Emotions are not discouraged under the watchful gaze of Death.

I cannot afford to stay for the actual burial, but it is an extremely private affair; only immediate family is permitted to see a dragon returned to the earth.

We have made our way back to town. I am enjoying another pie. I will resume my journey tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Skywing gods in this chapter and the previous one were developed with @mapyl-syrup, and credit specifically for the idea of the statue also goes to them!


	6. 13 Schanmach, '61

There is a curious fact that the borders of kingdoms are not often clear lines. Mountains turn to mud and sand to ice. There are contested territories that have been fought over countless times between each of the different portions of this continent, and some which are a kind of no man’s land. 

That is the situation as I am finding it here. There is a place where the foliage becomes more tropical, tall vibrant trees reach into the sky from where they are rooted on sharp upward-thrusted rock, not unlike the buttes of the desert and yet distinctly greener. There is often tracks of marks betraying water that has flowed down the faces of these isolated mountain-islands, and on occasion there will be a steep waterfall crashing down into the jungle floor, disappearing into the dense undergrowth. I do not doubt there are cave systems here housing creatures never before seen by dragon eyes, that twist and turn and are alive with flowing, dripping water carving spaces, terraces, palaces out of the limestone. I can imagine there are lakes dotting the forest floor that no one will ever know the existence of.

This curiously upheaval of a jungle is not somewhere the Rainwing tribe frequents, and is too far south to be claimed by Skywings, so I find myself more or less alone.

Or, at least, I thought I did, but among the jungle rivers crossing this place lives someone I found quite interesting. Now, I must urge my readers not to go looking for them, as they value their solitude intensely. It is not often one meets a hybrid dragon who is solitary by choice, but my friend, a brightly colored, phosphorescent freshwater-dweller is happy to lurk in this lonely tropical paradise on their own, with the colorful fish found in some of the pockmarked lakes for their company. 

They were kind enough to invite me to a cave carved into the palisades that they make their home in, and served me some interesting food that I can only describe as vaguely grub-looking and surprisingly sweet, with a notably pleasant sour aftertaste. They have invented an instrument, a kind of combination string-and-drum that they slung over their chest and played for me. It sounded like rainforest rapids. Well, that’s sort of a pretentious way to describe it, isn’t it? It wasn’t like any instrument I’ve ever heard before. 

My host told me that their parents were a Rainwing explorer who, after making his way down the southern coast and reaching the “tail” of the continent, the peninsula that is not any tribes’ territory and is populated mostly by scavengers and seagulls, met a Seawing who was stationed at a remote outpost. It was shortly before the war started, so they were only able to meet once, and when my host’s egg was laid their Rainwing father raised them in isolation in the outer parts of the jungle, before he was killed in a Mudwing raid. My host, tragically, has never met their Seawing father. Such is the reality of too many dragons.

I bid my new friend adieu and continued on as the terrain flattened. I hope to make it to the Rainwing capitol by the day after tomorrow.


End file.
